For those who have the same warped sense of humour this Letter can also be had in French.
(Complaints can be addressed to the Blog Council, your nearest newspaper, radio or TV station and when you leave this blog remember to pull the chain)
*Terms & Conditions Apply, if you can find them.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

THE TIMES & CORPORATESPORT HAVE BEEN PLAYING AN ILLEGAL GAME FOR YEARS

Dear Newspaper Readers,

Andrew Bonamour Times Media's CEO

You would have thought that a large organisation like the
Times Media Group that claims to be a “premier newspaper and magazine publisher
with the most recognised brands in South Africa” would know one of the
most elementary advertising legal requirements.

Included in its stable are the Sunday Times and its daily
offshoot The Times.

For
years The Times and perhaps other newspapers have been blatantly breaking the
law by carrying illegal CorporateSport advertisements for its business
breakfasts.

Part of Times Media's pledge

This firm that is in sports management and marketing claims
that these occasions “have become the most established breakfast forums in
Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban and offer sponsors a cost effective and
focused environment through which to impact large captive business audiences
and enjoy the effective brand exposure.”

Various high profile sporting personalities such as rugby
coach Brendon Venter; Proteas cricketers Hashim Amla and Dale Steyn and All
Blacks Kieran Read and Israel Dagg have been the stars of these events.

Sponsors of the breakfasts have included firms like Vodacom,
Mimecast international cloud based email managers, Landrover, Accenture the
business management consultants and McCarthy Toyota. The backers of these get
togethers must surely take some of the blame for what has been going on.

But
none of the top business people who have been involved in these breakfasts over
the years or anybody at the Times Media Group appear to have noticed that the
CorporateSport advertisements were illegal because the prices given excluded
VAT.

The VAT tax came into force in South Africa in 1991 and the South
African Revenue Service’s VAT Guide begins its “10 Important Principles” with
this: “All prices charged, advertised or quoted by a vendor must include VAT at
the applicable rate (presently 14% for standard-rated supplies).”

Another extract from the Times Media pledge

The earliest CoporateSport advertisement I could find was a
2013 one that gave the prices for individuals and tables of 10 marked
(excl.VAT). And the firm has been breaking the law like this since then or even
before that aided and abetted by The Times Media Group, which more than perhaps
any other type of business should have known better.

When I pointed this out to Andrew Bonamour the Chief
Executive of Times Media in an email he replied promptly saying: “I will look
into it. Thanks.”

Oops
almost a month later on 10 April I told him, “You need look no further than one
of your own papers, today’s The Times.”

In
one of those quirks of life Wendy Knowler, that ace consumer expert, who writes
regularly for The Times, just happened to have a page spread about advertising.
In it she told us: “‘The price you see is the price you pay’” was the catchy
phrase devised by the Government “many years ago when value-added tax was first
introduced.”

“By
law,” she went on, “retailers had to advertise VAT-inclusive prices - and still
do. So that was intended to impress on consumers that no retailer could add tax
to an advertised price.”

But undeterred CorporateSport has been doing just that.

Bonamour passed the problem on to his General Manager
Reardon Sanderson who told me he had spoken to Ross Fraser, the head of
CorporateSport and “he will amend the adverts going forward. We should not have
a repeat of this,” he added.

Meanwhile my efforts to get comment from Fraser went
unanswered. I assume he got my 11 April email because I checked with his PA and
she phoned me back to say it had been received.

He seems to keep out of the limelight as I could find nothing
about him on the internet. So perhaps not answering my emails is just part of
his hideaway approach to life.

In
the last one I told him that as his advertisements stating “excl.VAT” were
illegal then people who had paid more than the advertised price were all
entitled to a refund, going back years, of 14% if that’s what they were charged.
And judging by the website pictures showing the crowds of people who attend
these CorporateSport gatherings this could mean a great deal of money.

Evidently as a result of my inquiries an advertisement for the
11 May 2017 breakfast gives two prices for tables of 10 and two for
individuals. One is the (excl.VAT) price while the other one is the (incl.VAT)
price.

This
prompted me to email Reardon saying: “I suggest this is not right either. If ALL
advertised prices have to include VAT then the ones that don’t are surely not
legal. And this latest ad suggests you have a choice, to pay the price that
includes VAT or the one without it.”

I questioned why CorporateSport was so obsessed with pointing
out the Vat aspect in its ads. “Surely the Vat amount is given on all its
receipts and everybody who goes to the kind of event that it organises will
know that VAT will be charged,” I argued.

Reardon has yet to reply to this email.

The Times & Corporatesport finally get it right in thepaper's 21 April edition although the '(incl. VAT)' isnot necessary

Regards

Jon,
the Spoil Sport; Consumer Watchdog and Poorman’s Press Ombudsman who evidently
reads the The Times a lot more thoroughly than they do at Times Media.

No comments:

Post a Comment

twitter

tweet

About Me

I was born in South Africa just before the Boer War whenever that was?
Started life with a golden spoon in my mouth which made eating rather difficult as a result I was under nourished as a child.
Went to a posh school where I only got moved up a class when my old man donated another sight screen for the cricket pitch.
Career prospects were dismal and I was once turned down for a job in the London sewers. "Too highly qualified;"that’s what they said.
I became a journalist when the Police Force wouldn’t have me.
Like most journos I know nothing about everything but I still write about it.
I decided to have my own blog so I wouldn't have to drink with the editor for hours on end to get my stuff published when according to my independent assessment it’s always of great news value.
My religious beliefs are: You only die once so remember, "You can’t be serious and Have Fun."
NEWS FLASH: I've just been appointed the Poor Man's Press Ombudsman by Presidential Decree (Not to be confused with the PRESS COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA'S, SA Press Ombudsman)